The goal of this competitive renewal application is to further San Francisco State University's (SFSU) long-term objective to increase the productivity and caliber of its faculty conducting biomedical research and to significantly increase the number of minority faculty and students engaged in and pursuing biomedical careers. SFSU has received support from the MBRS program since 1995, and with this support, its program has evolved from 4 faculty projects to 18. During the present award period, SCORE faculty and their students have made more than 120 presentations at research conferences and have published or have in preparation over 40 papers, co-authored by more than 80 students, in leading peer-reviewed journals. As importantly, the SCORE program has functioned as a faculty recruitment tool, attracting top-notch biomedical researchers to our faculty, including eight over the past 3 years, 50% of whom are minority scientists. Continued funding of our SCORE program will allow SFSU to support 16 subprojects and two pilot projects conducted by three categories of faculty: those who are just beginning their careers at SFSU and thus are the future of SFSU's biomedical research program; those who are transitioning from, or have recently transitioned from Assistant to Associate Professor level and who are positioned to become the leaders of SFSU's biomedical research enterprise; and faculty who are transitioning into biomedical research from other, related research areas, and have the potential to enhance and enrich the biomedical research enterprise at SFSU. During this next award period, SFSU anticipates a major breakthrough in the ability of its senior SCORE members to compete for R01 funding, and expects that the MBRS SCORE program will become an established mechanism by which its new faculty can transition successfully to a similar level of research productivity. As importantly, with the expanded breadth of SCORE subprojects, SFSU undergraduate and graduate students will have a richer array of research projects in which participate. The Program Director will directly advise and monitor the progress of all SCORE subprojects and will administer the program in consultation with the Advisory Committee. An External Scientific Advisory Committee will assist the individual investigators by providing advice on the scientific focus and progress of research projects. A comprehensive evaluation of the SCORE program will be conducted by external evaluators from SFSU's Public Research Institute.